A personal account of the Tai Chi, Qi Gung, & Taoist Meditation Workshop held at the Omega Institute with David Carradine from October 6-8, 2000

24 Questions Continue:

9) "What changes of a positive nature you have made for others in this lifetime? Chances are whatever they were it was an accident. But, maybe I have. And I think I've tried a lot. But there's always, you know, nobody follows advice, right. There's plenty of jokes about that. I can't think of one of them right now. If you're going to criticize somebody, first walk a mile in his shoes. Because that way when you do criticize then, you'll be a mile away from them. (Big Laugh) And you'll have his shoes. (Bigger laugh) Anyway . . .

"Ten. Is a reality of non-duality possible upon the three-dimensional backdrop . . . I think I did this yesterday . . . Yes, but not in society, I think. Maybe on a mountaintop. Anyway, eliminate hope and you eliminate despair. Sure, eliminate sorrow, you probably miss out on joy. A very real question is who wants that. We like roller coasters, golfers like tough courses, ecstasy and agony, hot and cold. We like sweet, we like tart. What are emotions for if not to feel them. If we do away with hate will we lose love in the bargain? Nirvana might be a dead end. I've been thinking about that for years, that I' not sure about this nirvana thing, that it's really a great idea. I would rather strive and have ambition. Like the seven deadly sins the first one is pride. I have a very difficult time with that. I'm proud to be proud. I thought maybe they mistranslated it, maybe they’re taking about vanity. Would we really like some of the people that, lets say the teenyboppers are crazy about Tom Cruise and people like that. But if they could see them off camera, going like this, know what I mean, would they still like them. It's one thing to go like this, but this one. And I bet you they do it. So stay way from vanity for sure. And envy. Do we know the seven? Well let's see, pride, envy, greed, lust, sloth, uh, jealousy . . ."

Someone in the group said that envy and jealousy was the same.

Then David added "Anger, uh, rage."

Rob then said, "Gluttony. I'm trying to think of the movie."

David added, "Forget the movie. Pride envy, greed, lust, sloth . . . (someone added gluttony) Gluttony, yeah. Skipped that one. Boy, that's in America. You'd think in third world countries that would be impossible but you notice how many fat people there are? In those third world countries? You know the one thing that I can't get into is fat labor leaders. (Someone added that their leaders were not worthy) Well yeah. The other thing is that, you know how we talked about the animals? People can emulate animals, but animals can hardly emulate people. But every kind of animal, you kind of name people. You say, you're sort of an eagle. You're like a cat. If we were all the same shape and size and everything, haberdasheries would not do any business. What I mean to say is that the differences are wonderful. I mean we all are . . . how does this relate to what I was . . . I'm trying to figure out what the question was. Non-duality, did I do all that with non-duality? I did. Okay.

"Eleven. We're almost half way through. An ancient Japanese koan, what is the sound of one hand clapping? We did that, silly. What is the meaning of clap? To put to hands together sharply. On the other hand . . . (big laugh over the pun) Sorry. You can clap someone on the shoulder. That's only one hand. It makes noise, the nature which depends on the shoulder, naked, clothed, with what. Wet, bony, muscular, fat. Philosophically, it's just a childish giggle question as far as I can see. Typically Japanese. And I have fun with David Nakahara that way because kung fu is a Chinese thing and, you know. And they’re a cliques about how different ethnic groups are. Japanese are supposed to be kid of stiff, and they are, as a group it seems to me. But we always, kung fu guys, we're always talking about anti-karate. We line up that way. That's the yin and yang thing again. The idea that there is so much discipline involved in a karate class and formality, almost abusive discipline. And so we polarize and we say we want it to be free and not disciplined. It's a question of freeing yourself and not stiffening. And the fact that we don't have the belts, we don't encourage competition among the students, well that's the story. You will see a lot of competition in a kung fu class. And you will see people sparring with each other and getting really serious about it. But that's the ideal, to avoid that. To, uh, I mean you don't come up to a beautiful place like this, with all the trees and a place where you can actually see stars, and to be treated like a soldier. And there is a certain amount of that that goes on anyway. There are rules. There's a curfew. I mean wouldn't it be great if that coffee place stayed open all night and we could just party-like. The sound of one hand clapping.

12) "Why is it that humanity chooses to suffer? Or does it? Okay. The Maker chose to give us self-awareness and also ambition. The ability to regret, etc. We are able as well to perceive of an alternate reality. Imagine that things could be different. Given the dog-eat-dog nature of the cosmos, with wolves devouring innocent lambs has been the main theme, not to mention black holes devouring whole innocent galaxies, well that's all going to make some angst now and then. It's not the suffering though. It's how you deal with it. Stalin executes three million people, Son of Sam rapes and kills strangers, Mike Tyson hits people. Mother Teresa smoothes wrinkled brows. Xaviera Hollander gives head. Sorry. Beethoven writes symphonies. So, that I think is the answer to the whole thing about suffering is how you deal with it because it is all. We all are suffering to some extent or another. I mean everybody experiences aches and pains and heartaches, which are the worst kinds of pains, that there are. Everyone experiences rejection, frustration, incredible sadness, tragedies, so the question is how do you deal with it. When I was working with the Cerebral Palsy people. I was just so amazed how cheerful, how cheerful they were. And how, you know, they'll laugh at your jokes. And they’re willing to be the butt of the jokes. And I remember just being amazed at one time, seeing there was this one kid, you know, whose like this, and he's talking about playboy magazine. And he'd like to have one of those girls like that. And the girl who was taking care of him said, 'Who would want anybody like you, what girl want anybody like you,' and he just laughed and I thought, 'God how cruel.' But it was actually a question of realism. Please don't try to kid me right now. Because I know I'm facing a stark reality here, a degenerative disease that is going to kill me young and every day will be a little worse than the one before. So, I really don't have time for you to pretend at me. And that was kind of amazing to me. It made me wonder if my dealings, you know how we all tell a little white lie constantly, in order to make other people feel good. You know I do that. I always wonder if I'm doing the right thing when I'm doing it. If I shouldn't be just brutally telling the truth. Because when you do tell the truth all the time it's automatically brutal, you know. And I don't know. I don't know the answer. I'm not even sure if I know the question. Yes, sir." (Someone raised their hand at that moment.)

The man stated that he had a friend who said, "Should I tell them the truth or tell them what they know from."

David's reply was, "I don't quite get that. I mean I like that, but I don't quite get it. But, uh, I don't get a lot of things. Have you ever met a really wise man, you know. When I went to the Shaolin Temple I thought, 'Now I'm really going to see something. This going to be deep. I'm going to find some guy that really has GOT it. And I talked to the Abbot. He's kind of a politician. That was it. I mean he was okay and everything, but it wasn't that phooooo, and I talked to all I met, every single one of the acid guru people, Timothy Leary and Ba Ba Ramdas, and then they got Ralph Metzner, who is kind of a casualty. He acts like someone who's taken too much, kind of a shell. But none of these guys . . . every place that I've been, the Indian chiefs, the medicine men, all that. It just seems to come down that there's a lot of ego there. There's the regular foibles and I can't . . . somewhere there must be . . . I mean I really hope to find that someday. Find actually somebody I can look at and go, I don't see a chink, you know, this is . . . I'm looking at a person who is an actual mandala. (Oddly enough when I was typing this, I found myself thinking of Circle of Iron and the book of enlightenment. We are all capable of being that mandala. We just need to look deep enough. Perhaps I will share my thoughts on that subject with David in another letter to him.) I mean, there he is, right. And when you find out that, you know. But on the other hand everybody has to go to the bathroom don't they. And one of Lao Tzu's sayings that every person even the sage has to put on his trousers one leg at a time. Nobody can just fly through and go like that that. That we all have to go through the same mortal."

A woman said she could introduce someone to David and he said, "Send them over. Okay, Thirteen, Is perfection an illusion? Yes, no, yes. I don't know. If you ever find it, tell me. Never seen it. But on the other hand, to be an illusion, you'd have to see it. I can't never seen perfection, I don't think it exists. So, how can it be an illusion? Don't you have to see something, like a mirage for it to be an illusion? That's just semantics, isn't it? Literalism. Okay, that's enough of that.

"Fourteen. What do you think the fairytale Sleeping Beauty was all about? I don't know. That's my answer here. I don't know. Does anybody know? Is there some significance in that question that I was supposed to . . . Lady's asleep for 100 years, guy comes along and he kisses her awake. That's the whole story."

A woman mentioned there was supposed to be something meaningful in it but I'd forgotten it.

"Maybe you'd forgotten it just like I did," David said. (15) "If your life force were a tree what kind of tree would you be and why? Well, I wrote down a tree of knowledge. And I said I want to know, even if it gets me kicked out of Eden. There is a certain part of Catholic belief . . . the Jesuits and people who do a lot of thinking and try to figure out what the Bible really meant, how the word should be applied. And you know, like when they made decision like the fact that the Pope is infallible, which actually came along much later. When Peter was a Pop, he could say, well you're wrong. But then they made this rule. Whatever the Pop says is automatically the truth, which I find kind of funny."

A woman stated, "That is matters of Church and State."

David said, "All right, matters of Church and State. Okay, boy she's got this stuff down, doesn't she? Anyway, there is a part of a new litany that the idea of fall from grace was actual a fall TO grace. That we needed to fall into this. Because how can we find the free choice unless we do break a rule. And we broke the one big rule, right? Because if we don't eat that Apple of knowledge then none of the rest of it could possibly happen. And we have no mud to climb out of. Maybe as the . . . Well we went back to the well what am I here for thing. Beats me. Is it a game that God is playing with us? There is also, there's one religious cult that believes that's what it is. God wanted somebody to talk to. And what he had to do was plunge us down here, and split us up into billions of pieces and let us go through this process and eventually we will create a being amongst all of us, an intelligence that will actually be smart enough to give God a good conversation. We can actually challenge him in a game of chess or something. We still haven't gotten there. We're still pretty stupid. But we seem to be smarter than we used to be. Okay here's an interesting one.

"If you were out walking, this is sixteen, if you were out walking and you saw an uncanceled stamp on a postal letter lying on the ground what would you do? You see I'm not a stamp collector. I said, drop it in the mailbox, I suppose, if I thought about it. But I'd have to bend down to see it. I don't know why I'd do that. I don't understand why this question is, is this guy a stamp collector?"

The woman stated that it's one of those kinds of intelligence questions and David replied, "It's like a stamp from Benai kind of question, you mean? Yeah. But, I can't imagine why I'd care. Well maybe there is somebody who would care. Oh, there's a letter down there, it hasn't been mailed. Maybe that should be mailed. Maybe it’s a question of fact that I don't care enough. And it's another thing about looking down. Remember about that thing on what color is your carpet? And nobody knew? I think, is there a carpet, I think . . ."

The woman stated, "There are people would take the stamp and save the money."

David replied. "Might be money in there, right. There you go. We have to care about money. You have to care a lot about it, if you want to get a lot of it, I think.

End of Day 3 - Afternoon Session - Part 2

Alisa Joaquin Copyright@2002.
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